Soft Pure Lead??

[deerstalkert]

doubleset, learn French and you will understand Erwan easily. but he may not understand you.

 

[doubleset]

Arguing about it and saying "yes it will imprint!" when the other party emphatically argues otherwise, goes nowhere. Only hard facts will resolve the issue. Go get the evidence.

I am nowhere doing this, but at this point I despair in making the distinction clear to you. But let me work through the despair and try one more time.

I nowhere deny that the patch in question will imprint. The question I raised is whether its the IMPRINTING that is essential in the behavior of the projectile. What I question is whether a patch that does NOT imprint (but otherwise provides a tight fit) will behave any differently (or less efficiently) than the projectile using the imprinting patch. Put another way (and hopefully simpler): Does using the (fibrous "imprinting" patch) work any better than using a smooth patch that shows no imprinting phenomenon?

That's a perfectly straightforward EMPIRICAL question that can (indeed MUST) be answered by comparative controlled tests. THAT's "getting the evidence". Instead I'm told "Never mind that. Just look at the patch WE'RE talking about and you see it imprints." That's not getting the evidence, that's repeating an observation that doesn't address the question.

When you say "Go get the evidence," what do you MEAN by that? If it means to run the experiment I just described, then fine. But what I was ASKING is whether anyone ever HAD done such an experiment or if everyone is just sitting around saying "Hey, Bubba, ya notice when we use this thick patch with the heavy threads it sure imprints on the balls?" I'm not asking whether that patch imprints. I have NO DOUBT that it does. I'm asking another question entirely -- which is "How do we know that the imprinting is necessary in achieving the end result."

I'm done on that. If you don't get it, you don't get it. But it sounds like people are just repeating a BELIEF about what the imprinting accomplishes and defending the belief by just saying "Hey, look. It imprints. You can't deny that." And "Brawndo's got electrolytes." Yeah, it does! But what good are they?

 

[doubleset]

doubleset, learn French and you will understand Erwan easily. but he may not understand you.

I love it when people make assumptions and then recommendations based on them.

Much of my French has left me at this point, though I can still read it reasonably well. I never spoke it particularly well, but I did read it very well and could write it as required. This took place during a period when I was working in an entirely French (French French, not Swiss French) group in Basel. But I'm not about to resort to resurrecting my French at this point. Instead, Я работаю над повторным изучением русского языка. But it's slow going because it's been a LONG time since I used THAT.

 

[Africa58double]

I cast 280gr Roundball .58s and Water quench them- about 9Bhn

Same with a 445gr R.E.A.L Bullet at about 8Bhn

Standing with a Shooting stick,my Double barrel both shoot to the same point of impact at 80 yards

Dead on at 50 yards.

I’m aware this isn’t usual and I’m fortunate.

And no, That’s not my Internet Group size.

With that Bhn I feel confident To hunt most Any N.A Game animal… Within Reason.

I also have Wheel Weight 250gr Lee R.E.A.L .50s that shoot very accurate- and flat enough. Good Deer Pill.

Pure Soft lead, Not Required or Wanted.

 

[deerstalkert]

point was , Erwan is French and some of his posts get lost in translation. as do some of ours.
but maybe the point was lost in translation.

 

[Rifleman1776]

N.Y.Yank.........With the correct thickness of patching , the soft lead ball is gripped through the lubricated patch by the rifling. The rifling impresses itself into the lead ball to the degree ,that the rifling lands are visibly imprinted through the greased cloth into the ball. Without this very snug fit , the ball would strip across the lands , and the shot would be inaccurate........Hope this helps..........oldwood

Well said. Right on Bro.

 

[oldwood]

Getz .58 Jager barrel Rifling patch imprint on lead ball...........Did this the other day. I'm old and Couldn't remember what patch thickness or ball I should use. From the junk on my bench , I found a 3" long 1/2" chunk of brass rod. Put it in the bore on the breech plug. No Powder. Put a lubed .014 thickness patched .562 , round ball in the muzzle and short started it , and tipped the chunk of brass to the muzzle end , shook the gun up and down couple times , and drove the PRB out. Saw the land imprint on the .562 R/B , and checked the patch for irregularities............All good so went to the range , next day. ..........oldwood

 

[Idaho Ron]

When I developed the paper patched Lee 500S&W bullet I started off with pure. They shot pretty well. I got about as far with load development as i could. Next step was to change hardness to increase accuracy. I ended up with a hardness between 6 and 7 BHN.
For many years I never found one. They always just blew through.
In 2020 I shot a bull elk in the shoulder and found the bullet.
They drop from the mould at 458 grains. That bullet was still at 454 grains.
The fact is you can add alloy and improve performance. How much you add depends on the projectile.

 

[Dude]

I understand you now, doubleset. Thanks for patiently going over all that. I have no idea how you'd find the data to answer that question - which would be something like determining how fast the projectile spins when it leaves the barrel. Is there any way to measure that?

 

[tenngun]

I’ve always shot lead soft enough to scratch with a finger nail. Maybe a hard ball would shoot as well, I can’t say.
However copper was fed in to guns and copper is harder then lead.
is bismuth harder or softer then lead?

 

[Josephg]

I've used both for plinking and a little target shooting. Cannot tell any difference between the two and they load the same.
But from a technical point, the hard ball will not allow the patch to imprint and stick to the ball as it exits the muzzle. Thus no detrimental affect on accuracy. And I didn't just make that up as I was typing...

 

[Jason60chev]

What if you are shooting a smoothbore?

 

[Daveboone]

Does the weave show on recovered balls from snowbanks? (how's that for combining two different threads?)

I have recovered several balls with very visible patch imprints on them, wrapping around from the base of the ball up to 1/2 way up ...about where the ball engages the rifling.

 

[French Colonial]

How would you measure this? You could use a soft ball/patch combination that imprints and then a hard ball (bismuth?) slightly thinner patch to be sure.

However, how would you measure the rotational velocity to see if there was a difference????

All academic of course as I want projectiles to expand in any game I hunt with a muzzleloader (No big bears, cape buffalo, or elephants lately) but it is an interesting question.

 

[olskool]

i have been a handloader since 1967 at a very young age, and a bullet caster since 1982. for an example, the 1917 S&W 45 revolver has very shallow rifling, almost hard to see. a bullet 2 thousand of an inch less makes all the difference if it will stabilize in flight or keyhole (tumble) the softer the lead the more accurate it can be by the gas being able to expand the soft lead and fill the grooves of the riffling. so yes, soft lead and a couple of thousands can matter a heap! this is not something just passed down but fact i experienced and know. the ol timers knew it first,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Reno]

You need a tight seal in the bore during the ignition and firing so the gas builds up and pushes patched ball evenly down the bore. Mixed lead or harder lead can cause the gasses to escape around the harder ball and that throws the shot off in any one of many angles.
I get pure lead from commercial sources just so I know it is pure lead.
I also use a separate furnace for just the pure lead so it always remains what it is, pure lead.

 

[Howard Pippin]

Ive never gotten a good answer about this but why must we use pure soft lead for round ball? It's said over and over that the patch engages the rifling not the ball, so what does it matter if the lead is pure lead or wheel weights or whatever, other than maybe weight consistency or expansion on game. A slightly lighter ball would give a bit higher velocity therefore flatter trajectory, albeit not that much. Seems like a rookie question but there are many other myths and wives tales about BP shooting. I'm just wondering if this is one.

I'm a ways over the fourscore mark, and have only been playing around with this stuff for maybe 30 years so I sure don't know it all, but like you I was curious and made some balls out of wheel weights, I've shot them out of my muzzleloader, worked just fine, they were lighter by about five grains then the best lead I have. The amount of lead that I shoot at live critters anymore isn't much, most of mine is at a piece of cardboard with the target on it, or perhaps some rock at an unknown distance, expansion isn't one of my concerns, and those wheel weight balls are sure shiny. Common sense says they are no harder on my muzzleloader then copper bullets were on my unmentionables. I can tell you that it worked for me, and it is by far the easiest lead I obtain. Shooting them against the steel plate, does tend to flatten them.
squint

 

[Old Hawkeye]

I understand you now, doubleset. Thanks for patiently going over all that. I have no idea how you'd find the data to answer that question - which would be something like determining how fast the projectile spins when it leaves the barrel. Is there any way to measure that?

Yes! R = (12/T) x V. Where T = twist & V = velocity of bullet in feet per second will give you R (rotational speed of bullet) in Rotations per Second. Multiply by 60 to get RPM's. So if you have a ball with an 1800 fps muzzle velocity & a barrel twist of 1 in 48, the ball will be spinning at 27,000 RPMs when it leaves the muzzle. Unmentionables with their higher velocity & much faster twists can spin bullets in excess of 250,000 RPMs. That will make you dizzy!

 

[N.Y. Yankee]

Well OK, so, what do folks do who are not allowed to use lead ball bay law? How do they get the gun to be accurate?

 

[doubleset]

point was , Erwan is French and some of his posts get lost in translation. as do some of ours.
but maybe the point was lost in translation.

Duh, golly, I never thought of that. Maybe that's why, when addressing English-speaking audiences, people were confused and a little put off when my old patronne would say "I must insist ..." when she actually meant 'I must emphasize." ? I dunno. Maybe after all those years at various times with German, Russian, and French, I never understood there could be problems with translation. Thanks for the insight. But ...

Stuff can certainly get lost in translation, but that's not happening here. I understand exactly what Erwan and others are saying. I'm not denying the phenomenon of the imprinting. Again, that's not what needs to be tested -- it has been. I'm just asking whether there's any genuine evidence that it has the effect they all think it has over a tight patch that doesn't imprint in the way they think is necessary. It's a question that can't be answered by saying "Just look and you'll see the imprint." This isn't a matter of translation. It's a matter of conceptual understanding and evidence for an empirical claim involving physics. But on that matter, at this point, I give up. People who don't want to think about it can just drink the Brawndo, and it won't matter to them anyway because it doesn't present a problem to them. Ignorance can be bliss, especially if being ignorant about something has no practical disadvantage for you. But it's clear that SOME people here actually get the point.